so i wore my winfield scott tie. i didn't see a lex tour on winfield scott and since he's one of the five greatest soldiers in united states history, i thought i would wear this. dick summers who works up at carlisle gave it to me and i treasure it. that's the end of that. i'm going to talk about why i think military history is important. i realize i'm preaching the the choir here. i suspect most of you probably think military history is important or you wouldn't be here this afternoon unless you are just lost and too embarrassed to admit it. that's going to be our theme. i'll star on march 4, 1865 when abraham lincoln delivered his second inal august ral address to a crowd that gathered despite drenching rain earlier that day. the president and his audience understood that union victory almost certainly lay just ahead. the fourth anniversary of the outbreak of the war approached, two million men shouldered muskets in united states armies. casualties among those soldiers, dead, wounded and taken prisoner surpassed 80

only two career politicians rise to the rank of major general, howell cobb, almost as fat as winfield scott, he has permanent shadows on his shoes, he can't get out of them, so he never commands in the field. [ laughter ] and the other is, so he winds up commanding things like conscription of the draft in georgia and the other is john c. breckenridge who turns out to be a decent division commander but not given too much responsibility until he's already demonstrated himself. the confederacy doesn't have as many of these enclaves to please, though there are still plenty of them and virtually every tole tigs politician in t confederacy thought he ought to be a general. lincoln in order to hold the coalition together he's got no choice but to make generals out of people who have no business being generals. >> before we go back to the generals i want to spend a few minutes talking about the common soldier, because you've both written so many important things about each of these commanders' relationships with the common soldier, which was important, and i'd like you each to address how they rela

he dispatched cutters, he dispatched winfield scott. and he issued a proclamation that lincoln summoned, which he called for in 1861. let me read one bit of it. he was addressing the people of south carolina. ultimately stern and soft, jackson, again, he was acting at two levels. the mock him he was trying to cut a deal in the back. some people might call that hypocrisy. i call that statecraft. that is what great politicians do. it is what that's quick and contemporary -- what ronald reagan did with the soviet union. from 1981, two or three days after reagan's inauguration, preferring to the soviet union as the focus of evil in the modern world, to kissing babies with gorbachev in red square in 1988. you negotiate, you use for your, you use a kind of bullying threat to soften the target. it is negotiation. here is what jackson said to south carolina. contemplate the condition of the country of which he still form an important part. consider its government, uniting in one bond of common interest and general production, somebody different